Material guide members for a compressing and conveying apparatus

Claim 1

Apparatus for placing a bat of compressible, resilient, fibrous material into an open ended pillow tick in a substantially non-compressed form comprising a hopper for the receipt of a soft, resilient, compressible, fibrous bat of synthetic fiber material of predetermined size and shape, a pair of spaced apart, substantially parallel belt conveyors, means for driving at least one of said conveyors, said conveyors having discharge ends shaped for the positioning of said pillow tick thereover for the receipt of a conveyed bat, said hopper being positioned adjacent one end of the spaced conveyors, a belt conveyor located adjacent the hopper bottom and coplanar with one of said spaced apart parallel belt conveyors for the feeding of said batt into said spaced apart conveyors, drive means for said belt conveyors, an adjustable pair of opposed, flexible, material guide members coplanar with the sidewalls of the hopper and extending between the conveyor belts and within the lateral width thereof, said guide means extending from the hopper to an area beyond the drive means for the parallel belt conveyors to prevent material being compressed by the parallel belt conveyors from becoming entangled with said drive means, said belt conveyors and guide means forming a passageway for the vertical and horizontal compression of said bat during the conveyance thereof, said spaced apart conveyors having discharge ends shaped for the positioning of said pillow tick thereover for the direct feeding of the bat into the pillow tick, thereby providing for the substantial release of said compression applied to said bat as it is fed into said pillow tick.